UKH

Way back at the start of the pandemic, I got a ton of good reading suggestions on here, mostly sci-fi orientated. Can't remember who recommended what, but in particular I ended up reading Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and then went on to the whole of The Baroque Cycle. As that clocks In around 3,500 pages it did mean I didn't get around to checking out various other authors that are still on the list, but one thing I'm about to finish and has blown my socks off is Alisdair Reynold's Revelation Space. As with Stephenson, I'm in awe of how a single mind can come up with such imaginative and complex material (and make it fun).

Something I stumbled across during last year's lockdowns and that really got me through was Pierce Brown's Red Rising series. It starts off a bit YA, self-consciously a mish-mash of many tropes and narratives you've read before. (It's Space Romans doing hunger games, OK?!) But my word, does it become so, so much more than that as the series progresses. Utterly compulsive, utterly immersive, and progressively smarter and more nuanced whilst remaining a rip-roaring thrill ride. Strongly recommend - and not just to sci fi nerds. Everyone I've recommended it to has loved it. HAIL REAPER! HAIL LIBERTAS!

You?

I binge read all 22 of Patrick O'Brien's 'Aubrey-Machurin' 19th Century naval tales (as in the Master & Commander movie that was really a mash-up from several different books the series). It's an impressive body of work and 95% engaging, only flagging a few times over the course of the books. Loads of accurate tactical and historical detail and believable characters. Sadly O'Brien died with a part written (possibly) final novel,  so the character arcs don't really conclude, but perhaps for the stories that's no bad thing. The seamanship and tactical accounts are spellbinding if you have any interest in that area.The novels do stand alone, but reading them from the start does add something. The books are old enough now to be cheap paperbacks on eBay or available in omnibus sets.

Rather than reading a lot, I finished writing a huge biography that had taken me 10 years to write (my agent has had it with four publishers for several months, so could be hearing any day now). I'm now writing a much shorter, easier book. I'm already 2/3 of the way through the first draft - four chapters out of six written.

I read the first one (that's called ​​​​​​​Master and Commander, right?) a few year back but it just didn't click for me. A close friend loves all the books and he and I normally have very similar tastes, but just not on this one for some reason. I did watch the movie during lockdown though, and I thought it was really, really good.

Oh I also wrote a book, and it's out next month (in America; May for the UK). Alas, mine is much less likely to be of interest to the UKC crowd than yours .(On which note, I thoroughly enjoyed Fiva when I read that by the way! Indeed every time I use the expression 'avoid it like the plague' I get a weird flashback to the scene where you describe your internal cringe at your brother using the phrase in front of the Famous Working Class Climbers. Not sure why that one bit in particular stuck with me!)

https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691210834/adam-smith-recons...

Your book sounds extremely interesting, in an academic way. Sort of thing I should make the effort to read. My latest two books are nothing to do with climbing, so don't know how many UKCers will be interested (first re my great uncle, world speed record breaking pilot, a sad, not very nice, sex-obsessed nutter; second, a very detailed account of film editing with Kubrick, using old-fashioned, pre-digital methods: will appeal to a core of geeks, but maybe not to many others.)

Have increasingly enjoyed Joe Abercrombie books based on the world of the First Law. Latest the Wisdom of Crowds in a time of industrial revolution (and Robespierre type excesses). Hard edged, interesting characters, humorously written and multiple story lines.  Also the Eden books by Chris Beckett (SF). 

Surprised to enjoy the Priest series by Peter McLean: basically Peaky Blinders in a mediaeval world. Also The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers: nice feel good SF.

Usually enjoy the crime author James Lee Burke.

Oh the website just makes it sound exciting to try and get people to pay for it. I can assure you, it isn’t. 

Is this biography of your great uncle? 

I can well understand that, it's not the strongest novel in the series by a long way, but unfortunately using the same title for the film raised expectations. I had a gifted copy for about ten years before I got round to reading it. The events in the film do mostly occur (except the young midshipman amputee story line, IIRC) but spread across different books.

Yes.

Time well spent. 

I re-read Joyce's Ulysses and posted a handy guide for climbers on here.

I also indulged my fascination with the literary niche of climbing poetry and wrote a couple of short articles about it (historical and contemporary) for climber magazine.

But mostly I frittered the time away combing the UKC logbook comments for deniable beta so I could burn off my pensioner mates when we were let outside again.

I'd be interested in that handy guide - link?

I'm afraid it's completely tongue in cheek! I'll go back through my posts and dig it out. Hopefully it will raise a smile.

Did you see this on BBC? Allthough I can't say it inspired me

BBC News - Ulysses: Celebrating 100 years of a literary masterpiece
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60080683

https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/culture_bunker/joyces_ulysses_a_climbers_...

Ha, I get it now

I thought I'd read everything that JLB has written but I seem to be a couple behind - something to look forward to, at least.

I have read an awful lot over the Pandemic, across a lot of genres, but the book that I would say has really altered my thinking, and I feel I need to read again is Grayson Perrys, "The Decent of Man" . 
Besides making reconsider myself, it also has given me an amusing new take on people I meet in climbing.

Your book looks interesting, I rather like economics, but maybe I should read Adam Smiths book first.

Amongst many other things I got around to reading both The Iliad and rereading the Odyssey. Both extraordinary and remarkable. Such an alien, yet, at the same time, familiar world. The Odyssey was much the easier read and I found the Iliad quite hard going at times. However it is the Iliad that keeps returning to haunt me a year later.

Smith is fantastic, but his works are tough. Partly it is because they are long and hard. Partly it is because it helps to know a lot about the surrounding intellectual context to get why he is saying what he is saying in particular ways at particular times. I’ve spent the best part of 10 years piecing together bits of the puzzle, but I really do think he was a phenomenally impressive thinker who continues to be hugely under-appreciated (or appreciated in the wrong ways, eg as some sort of founding father of right wing economics, when he would have been appalled at many of the uses his name has been put to).

Yes, some books are harder than others. I tried and failed with Jan Morris's "Conundrum", but came back to it a couple of months later, oddly after reading "The Decent of Man", and thoroughly enjoyed it, and am now a fan of Morris.

Possibly to read Smith, one needs to read several other books, not only Economic but also Historical to give context and nuance, to what is written.

If I am not enjoying a book, by the end of the first chapter I will put it to one side, there are too many books and so little time to spend time reading one I am not enjoying.

This sounds like the best possible use of lockdown. Hats off to you Mr Clarke.

Not novel but literary.  I read Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals at the same time reading about Coleridge's life at Keswick.

reading of some of their exploits I rather think that they might have been given words of advice had they encountered Patterdale or Ambleside mountain Rescue

I finally got to first law at Christmas. Really enjoyed them- straight fantasy isn't usually my thing.

My lockdown project were the Rotherwierd books. Bounced off them a couple of times,  ut in the end really enjoyed them